Based on the novel of the same name by Alan Warner, the story follows the titular Morvern (played by Samantha Morton), the film opens with Morvern lying next to her dead boyfriend who has just recently committed suicide. Among the presents he’s left her for Christmas before he took his life are a portable cassette player along with a compilation tape of “Music for her”, the money to pay for his funeral and the manuscript for a novel he’s just written which was dedicated to Morvern. Our protagonist takes it upon herself to change the authors name on the manuscript to her own name before sending it to a potential publisher, she takes the £300 for the funeral and books a trip to Ibiza for her and best friend Lanna (played by Kathleen McDermott, in her screen debut) who she works with at the local supermarket. Before they embark on this trip she cuts up her boyfriends body and buries him in the countryside and keeps his demise a secret from the world, the potential for escaping the painful memory of finding her departed lover is threatened when Lanna confesses to sleeping with Morvern’s boyfriend at some point in the past. Once Morvern and Lanna arrive in Ibiza it becomes clear that the publishers are very interested in the manuscript, meanwhile Morvern and Lanna’s relationship begins to show signs of strain. Ramsay and co-writer Liana Dognini’s script is sparse with only small patches of dialogue usually between Morvern and Lanna, there is very little in the way of character or narrative based exposition, to the films credit it drops us right in the middle of a world we know nothing about and asks us to catch up rather than spelling out the situation. The film is exposing a different world view, Morvern’s world view, but it does so without the aid of monologues or even any other characters commentary: her haphazard and impulsive behaviour is rarely noticed by those around her and when it is the dialogue is never clichéd.
Holding the film together is Samantha Morton’s mesmerising central performance; Morton is arguably one of Britain’s most underrated actors, although she is rarely as showy as some of her contemporaries, she always embodies her characters minds and souls, from her TV work on series like Band of Gold to her Hollywood Pictures like Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report. She garnered particular praise in Woody Allen’s film Sweet and Lowdown and since she began acting has switched from UK to US productions and then back again with impressive frequency. Although American filmmakers can offer her more money she continues to return to Britain if offered the right role and thus supporting the UK film industry which is something to be admired. Kathleen McDermott is also very impressive in the supporting duties, she possesses an admirable restraint and more than holds her own against the more experienced Morton. The Guardian recently ranked Morvern Callar as the most underrated film of the last decade which is what prompted my recent interest in the film, and whilst I don’t quite agree with that particular assessment, I must concede that it is an impressive British film (despite its aimlessness) and one which deserves to be more widely seen. M.Dawson |
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Scottish director Lynne Ramsay is one of the current crop of exciting British film makers who’ve cut their teeth in feature filmmaking over the past ten years or so. After Graduating from the UK’s National Film and Television School in 1995 she wrote and directed a number of shorts including the excellent Gasman which is available on the Cinema 16: British Short Films DVD. Her feature film debut, Ratcatcher, came in 1999 and was favourably compared with the works of Ken Loach and Lindsay Anderson for its unflinching exploration of adolescence. Then in 2002 came her sophomore feature: Morvern Callar. 
Ramsay’s filming style is praise worthy, she and cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler (who worked on Ramsay’s previous films Gasman, Ratcatcher and would later go on to shoot Danny Boyle’s Science Fiction thriller Sunshine) combine extreme close-ups, unorthodox shot composition, shallow focus pulls, hand held and more stylised imagery and, in particular, moody Christmas themed lighting in the first half of the film. The eerie opening scene is complemented by the flashing red fairy lights of Morvern’s Christmas tree, which add the Lynchian tone for the film at the start. The cold Scottish environment is conveyed through muted tones and darkened colour pallets and is then contrasted by the lighter warmer tones and bright lights of Ibiza. The films editing is also of interest when combined with the shot selections and the use of music, going from clear sound to hollow and tinny like through the headphones Morvern listens to it, occasionally a track will be cut short for no reason, other times it will run over events with no on screen source. Most of the soundtrack is taken from music Morvern’s dead boyfriend leaves for her on the compilation tape; tracks from artists like Aphex Twin, The Velvet Underground and Boards of Canada punctuate the proceedings and add a dreamy edge to the film. This music selection also adds to the enigma of Morvern Callar, the film offers a series of questions about both the narrative and the central character and then refuses to answer or explore any of them to any significant degree. Why does Movern’s boyfriend kill himself? Can Morvern get away with this fraud? Why does Morvern behave in such an erratically free spirited way after her boyfriend has died? What prompts her into this pattern? Is it to do with grief? The film doesn’t offer any massive insights into grief in particular so this doesn’t hold up particularly well as a theory. Why was the dead boyfriend (a talented and troubled writer) seeing an under educated supermarket girl in the first place? Of course many of these points can be explored in subtext, but Morvern is such a vacant and unemotional character that there is little for us to read from her words as she says very little, but there is more we can read from her actions. The casualness with which she chops up the body, or the flippant way she takes class A drugs, how easily she decides to take credit for the manuscript. Morvern is a character who acts on impulse, never second guessing what she’s doing because she never appears to be thinking too hard about any of the decisions she makes, this isn’t knowing or deliberate impulsiveness, it is Morvern’s natural behaviour, she makes a decision and then sticks to it. Why and when this behaviour began is up to us to decide. Morvern’s character spine is however quite clear, she is striving for a life less ordinary but without ever proclaiming this motive. Lanna actively discourages her and tries to bring her back to reality: “It’s the same crapiness everywhere, stop dreaming…” she bites at her towards the end of the film. Morvern never makes a big deal about moving on, because at its core the film is about moving rather than where one moves to. Although the protagonist has a clear central goal the film could be viewed as a tad aimless, its never entirely certain where the story is going, we seem to follow our heroine from one environment to the next with nothing more than minor crises at any one time, whether or not the book will sell or if she’ll be able to pass herself off as the true author is never a source of great tension or dwelled on for any meaningful period. Alan Warner’s book doubtlessly offers more insight into the character of Morvern as it’s written from her first person perspective, without reading the book I shall not comment on it any further except to point out that Warner has included the character in two subsequent novels so there must be something appealing about this character in a literary sense which he felt compelled to explore further. As for Ramsay and Dognini’s interpretation of that novel it feels right that the main creative pair are both female, as the films content could otherwise be interpreted as a male fantasy of two young women on a potentially self-destructive and sexual journey, they take drugs, sleep with men at the drop of a hat (or underwear in this case), Morvern is only able to embark on the adventure because of the money her boyfriend left her and her eventual success might well depend on his now expired talents. The frequent female nudity is never gratuitous but is also offset by the knowledge that a female director was at the helm. Perhaps I should not make such a commentary on the gender configuration of the production team as I’m a firm believer that drawing the distinction only compounds what shouldn’t be an issue in the first place, and the director has also spoken about her continual frustration at being asked questions about what she brings to the process as a woman, “not many men get asked what they bring to the process as a man” she once stated.
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